Figures in the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare's Mortality Over Regions and Time (MORT) report revealed in 2017 the average age of a male at the time of his death in the Upper Lachlan Shire was 78 years. For women, the recorded age at death is 83 years in the same year.

The AIHW report drew from all deaths recorded across Australia from 2013 to 2017.

There were 246 deaths in the Upper Lachlan Shire over the five years from 2013 to 2017, with coronary heart disease the leading cause for both men and women claiming 29 lives.

Coronary heart disease is the most common of all heart attacks and there is no cure, however, it can be managed.

The Heart Foundation advises a healthy lifestyle will help look after heart health. The national health charity tips to be hearty healthy; stay active, follow a healthy eating plan, aim to reach and keep a healthy weight, give up smoking and reduce exposure to second-hand smoke.

For men, the AIHW advises that regular physical activity helps maintain healthy body weight and reduce the risk of many chronic conditions and injuries. Sport and other forms of physical activity can also improve mental wellbeing and may foster social networks which provide support and opportunities for development.

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, lung cancer, dementia and Alzheimers were tied as the next most common cause of death for both sexes, taking 14 lives, followed by cerebrovascular disease (stroke) (11), followed by colorectal cancer (9), prostate cancer, diabetes and cardiac arrhythmias (8) and lymphomas (7).

The data shows that dementia and Alzheimers is the leading cause of death for women across Australia. In the Upper Lachlan chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (lung diseases including bronchitis and emphysema and dementia and Alzheimers was the second-highest cause of death, claiming 7 lives. followed by cerebrovascular disease (stroke) with 6 deaths, breast cancer, lung cancer and cardiac arrhythmias (4), colorectal cancer, other cancers, hypertensive disease, lymphomas, leukaemia and liver disease (3)

For men, lung cancer was the second-highest cause of death, claiming 10 lives, followed by prostate cancer with 8 deaths, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (stroke), dementia and Alzheimers and diabetes (7), colorectal cancer (6), cerebrovascular disease and lymphomas (5) and suicide (4).

Men were more than four times more likely to take their own lives than women, with suicide accounting for the deaths of just one woman over the same period.

The MORT report also revealed that up to 37 per cent of so-called premature deaths, or deaths of people aged under 75, were potentially avoidable